The insanely boring life…

Here in our household we open the gifts of Christmas late night of Christmas Eve. That is just the way we do things. Anyway, so, that means tonight.

What is going to happen a little later:

• After it gets dark, we are going out for a drive to look at Christmas lights.
• When we get back we have dinner and we chat
• Which then leads to the opening of the gifts.

So, I would not mind skipping directly to the last step. lol. Anyway, talk to you again on Christmas day!

I was looking forward to this movie, slightly, since I love Time Travel movies. The way each writer depicts what they think would happen if Time Travel existed. This was obviously one of those great time travel films….exept for the great part.

I cannot say that I hated this film completely, and I can’t say that I disliked or liked it. I have mixed feelings.

“A Sound of Thunder” is about a game hunter (Burns) who goes on a time-traveling safari owned and operated by Kingsley’s character to hunt dinosaurs in the prehistoric era. When he kills a butterfly, he unknowingly sets off a chain reaction that will erase humanity from existence. A team of experts must return back in time and replace the butterfly. This of course is a dangerous task, since every few hours what is called a “time wave” accours, and sends the evolution system crashing bit by bit. They must achieve this before the last time wave when they will be turned back to primates.

Of course, all this rates to an interesting story, but the only thing that really p***ed me off about this film, is that they are trying to make a time travel film, and yet have such crappy sepcial effects. I mean, really, you could SEE every second of this movie was shot on blue screen. It actually hurts your eyes at times. A scene which is surprisingly horrible in that sector is the scene where two characters are walking down the street, talking, with futuristic cars behind then. And it actually does hurt your eyes, because the amount of fakeness is so overwhelming, that you get a head ache from trying to make sense of it all.

So, good story, horrible special effects, good acting….to an extent. Which earns this movie 5/10.

I finally got someone to review my musical, Untitled. The review was written by my very good friend, *~Lillianne~* from Virtual Hogwarts. Anyway, here it is:

Andre has written a play, which is 103 minutes long. The play is written in two languages English and Afrikaans. Andre has written all the dialogue, songs and music.
The plot involves a young girl called Christine, who meets a boy in a chatroom, she meets up with him against her friends wishes and finds out that he is a drug dealer who ends up using her for her money, but he gradually falls in love with her. Being on drugs the man (Steven) who calls himself the Phantom has numerous meaningless love affairs and acts recklessly due to being intoxicated by the drugs that he sells, he also owes a lot of money to various people. His true love Christine is happily unaware of Steven’s background, when he proposes marriage to her. She happily accepts until she finds out that he is being unfaithful to her. She runs away from him, tragically unhappy and very afraid, due to learning about his rebellious and dangerous background. He hunts her down and tries to kill her, and inher attempt to get away she shoots him and he dies.

The songs that accompanied this play were wonderful, all the words and music were well written and merged together beautifully. Even though the plot to this play is similar to Phantom of the Opera, the songs and music were totally unique. I can imagine myself sitting in theatres and watching/listening to this in the future. I loved the plot and the music was so good, I was dancing and singing along to the words myself, trying to imagine that I was Christine heartfeltingly singing on stage. I feel really honoured and priviliged to have been asked to listen to the songs and read this script. I believe that Andre is a clever and imaginative script/song writer, the songs were so romantic and heartwrenching at times, they express all the emotions required for such an emotionally charged play. Well done Andre 8/10

I have only two little criticisms, the first is that some of the dialogue is in Afrikaans, so not everyone will be able to understand this (but this can be easily changed and there are some spelling mistakes.
But I loved the play and the songs were even better, thank you Andre.

Anyway, thanks a lot, *~Lillianne~* for your time for reading my musical, and I am really glad you liked it.

Right, now, if anyone has been reading my blog, they might have noticed that I have been using a Linux Distribution called PCLinuxOS for quite some time now. I don’t know how many people are familiar with PCLinuxOS (which I am just going to call PCL), so I would recommend you go out and try it.

Firstly, what I found interesting with this Distribution, is the fact that you can only download the Live CD. So, if you boot from the Live CD, you can test whether all your settings work, and you install it by clicking on “Install PCLinuxOS” which will be on your desktop. But all the settings you set while testing the Live CD will be saved to your hard drive as well, so that is a great bonus!

Now that I am on the installation path, I might mention that the installation is one of the best I have seen. So simple, yet effective.

Once you have it installed it is simply a pleasure to work with, and now I am only talking about the BARE necessities. What makes it even better is the GREAT look of the system. The best piece of eye candy I have seen in a long time.

The great thing with this Distribution (I seem to say that often) comes into play when using it for every day tasks. I have never seen such ease of use before! But alas there are a few woes which one has to deal with.

Firstly, those who have been reading my blog may know that I am heavily into midi files, since I use them almost every day. Midi’s are just so very irritating to work with in Linux!!! I could just kick something! Simply trying to get midi’s to make a sound in a program other than timidity is a pain, and I haven’t got it to work yet.

Secondly is the fact that with Linux can be a bit overwhelming at times. It may be open source, which i love, but all this configuration possibilities is just so much for my poor windows-based mind! I suppose you get used to it, though.

Thirdly, some things are a little hard to set up that requires you to go fiddle with terminal (the Linux equivalent of command prompt, which you use surprisingly often). However I don’t believe the avridge office secretary will be effected.

Besides those snags the entire system is just a breeze to work with. It is so fast!!! That is one thing I can say for Linux! In Windows it feels as though you are cruising the country side (actually a desert wasteland…) with a VW Beetle, however Linux makes it feel like you are driving the porche-ala-king!

And the Internet! I have never felt so connected before! I mean, my download speeds are 20 KB faster per second!

So, everything is nicely laid out for you in Linux. So, if they could just work on those problems, I would be the happiest person on this planet.

Well, it is official. This is one of the best films I have seen this year. I have been awaiting this film for a long time, as I know many Lord of the Rings fans have. Peter Jackson is what can be summed up as a film genius. Reason being he can create a 3 hour film without a person wondering how much time until the movie ends. Very few directors can do that.

Now, on to details. I was in a fairly bad mood when I walked into the cinema. I was exited, though. The film started and almost immediatly it started to work on my last nerv by being so suspenceful. There was not one moment that I didn’t want to eat all the nails on my fingers because of all the suspense.

What makes this film even more remarkable is the wonderful effects and the wonderful action scenes which just hightens the emotion to the climax at the end of the film which just makes you want to cry! The actors are brilliant and truth be told, I never thought that Jack Black could do a serious movie. Seems I was wrong. he is in fact a great actor and with such a wonderful ensemble you would mostly stare in awe of how Peter Jackson managed to set up such a wonderful performance.

I can go on for pages on how wonderful this film is, but I can just give you one warning: Go to the bathroom before you go see this film because it is so good that you would not want to go during it ergo resulting quite an embarresing prediciment.

Anyway, so I give this film (i think I am too leniant) a wonderful 10/10!

I, Andre Gerber asked AT THE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR (2005) for an iPod for Chistmas. An iPod mini, to be precise. now, since Christmas is near, I reminded my parents ONCE AGAIN that I want that.

And, as per usual, they left it until the last minute and now, just as I predicted they are phoning every place on earth and they can’t find one because everyone is “sold out” because it is holiday season.

Now, the fun part. My uncle, who was in England, was asked to buy an iPod for me there, and when he came back to South Africa, he bought an iPod for my cousin (his 10 year old daughter) and incedently “forgot” to buy mine and claimed they too were sold out.

I don’t care if my cousin (Inecke) gets and iPod, but what BUGS me into my grave is the fact that he bought one aswell for her step brother whom he has never even MET! Now, I would be ok with this too, but the thing is, they don’t even know what an iPod is and they don’t even WANT one since they cannot use it.

I, the person who actually WANTED the iPod, wont get it, nor would I get anything else this xmas because that was supposed to be my gift. And they, who can’t use an iPod because a) they don’t have a PC ergo they can’t make MP3’s. In fact, they don’t even know what mp3 IS!

But, besides that, he bought one for them, and I, yes I, will be left with no present this chistmas and will have to watch while everyone else opens gifts and I will sit there with a dry mouth and no presents because I will have to wait for next year to get one.

Now, let me recap that I asked MORE THAN A YEAR AGO for an iPod this year. AND I reminded them every week!

So, I ask you: WHAT IS THE WORLD COMING TO!?!?!?!

Nothing has really happened lately…my life has mainly been boring. The holidays are so long. And to think….next year I will finally be in my favorite subjects…ok, well, not all of them. In case I forgot to mention, I am in Gr. 10 next year, meaning that I can choose which subjects to take next year. These are my subjects, including those which I am forced to take:

Languages:
Afrikaans *Home Language
English *Home Language

Forced Subjects:
Math
Life Orientation (health class)

Chosen Subjects:
IT (Information Technology)
CAT (Don’t know what it stands for but is basically basic computer training)
Drama

*Home Language means studying it at a higher grade than usual

Now, I beg for someone to reason with me why we have to have Life Orientation. Seriously, if I hear the word AIDS one more time I might just slit my wrists! It is becoming so irretating. At least my other subjects are cool. I am just scared because we are moving Afrikaans teacher and I have been with my Afrikaans teacher for two years and I don’t want to go to someone else! I heard the other Afrikaans teachers give a lot of work and are far too strict.

Anyway, the actual reason for my posting today is to say that you should go check this out:

iHost.za.net -> Phantom of the Opera 1987 soundtrack

That is the link to my personal Phantom of the Opera soundtrack which I just happen to have. That is the EXTREMELY rare 2 Disc original edition of PotO. Where all the original singers sing; including Sarah Brightman and Micheal Crawford. Enjoy.

I have not posted for a while because for the past few weeks (maybe a month) I have been working error free on linux. PCLinuxOS. Truth be told, this is a great Distro and one of my favorites. No, correction, it is my favorite.

It does everythign I want it to do. The only thing I must still figure out is how to get midi’s to work on Rosegarden. Currently Timidity is the only application that is playing MIDI files. Pity. Besides that, the only thing that is bothering me is the fact that I still can’t play my HP games on Linux…with Wine.

On to games, I am going to buy myself a game called Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire for my PC. Wonderful, is it not? I hope this game will be longer than the others, which I managed to complete in one day (less than) per game. In fact I think I can complete all the HP games I have (HP 1, HP2, HP Quidditch World Cup, HP3) in one day, including finding all the cards.

One thing is for sure though, this is the longest time I have ever spent in Linux.

Also, lately, I have been feeling a little disconnected from the world. Why? Because I am reading a fanfiction of Harry Potter called Harry Potter and the Psychic Serpent. it is a fanfic of Harry’s 5th year. It is almost better than any of the other HP books. But I use “almost” within reason.

Anyway, I will post a little later. Going back to reading that book (about 400 odd A4 pages). See you soon.

Well, I have seen the movie. Went to the south African premier.

So, firstly let me say that this was THE best film of all time! And this is not just speaking of Harry Potter! Oh my soul… no one can comprehend the greatness of this film!

The lighting was the best I have ever seen. It was so dark, and obviously following in the theme of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Yet, it was wonderfully colourful in its own way. It had a black-dark-blue feel to it, and you can see it whenever they are in a darker bit.

However the movie is not only dark. At some points the film is just too hilarious to control yourself from screaming of laughter!

I mean, have you ever thougth of a better Reeta Skeeter? I mean, that woman was the best! She did get very little screentime… But on the other hand, the adult actors did get surprisingly much. Dumbledore and Mad eye and Karkaroff and Madame Maxine and the others did get quite a lot making this move more adult oriented.

In fact, I cannot find one single fault in this film, coming to think of it. I will go watch it again tomorrow….and I am not kidding!

10/10 through and through.

Another Linux Distro which i am trying out…exept……in the one day which I was trying it out, i managed to break it….I am absolutly useless when it comes to Operating systems, it seems.

The only reason i was trying ubuntu is because I broke windows…again… so, after finally getting windows to work again after trying to boot in Safe Mode, and using system restore, I got windows to work again…and now I am taking, once again, a break form linux.

I am starting to think the only OS I will never be able to break is a Mac OS X. they look nice but you cannot fiddle with core system settings, so it will be pretty hard to break….lol, but macs are very expensive, on the other hand.

So, anyway, just wanted to say hi and bye.